


Nothing More

by spencerevansanderson



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Behavioral Analysis Unit (Criminal Minds), F/M, Romance, Unsub | Unknown Subject
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-20 19:55:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spencerevansanderson/pseuds/spencerevansanderson
Summary: When Sedona Luong is kidnapped by her ex-fiance, her entire world is turned upside down. She moves in with the BAU's resident tech analysis wizard-genius, and eventually gets a job at the BAU; but her kidnapper is still out there, and she is not safe.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologue

SHE IS THE REASON FOR HIS PAIN. It's her. It has to be. He lies awake at night, and he hears nothing but sirens; but not the kind that they attach to those police cars. These sirens are hushed, whispered and hissed, but they are a warning, and they never go away. He is not sure what they are warning him of, but it is something, and it is deathly important.

She lives at 1683 Baker Street. She deserves this. Vickie starts the van, and Miles won't stop looking over in his direction. Amanda is tapping her fingers against her thigh; pinky finger, ring finger, middle finger, index finger, thumb. Sebastian is sitting stoically, not making a sound, because you can never trust Sebastian with anything. He knows now to keep his mouth shut.

Noah Cutwright does not know what to do with his hands. The trip is bumpy, and he keeps finding himself sliding up and down the long seat in the trunk of the van. Usually, he would be sitting in shotgun, but today is different. Today is the start of the end, and even though Vickie has the radio turned to a station playing heavy rock and roll, the mood is solemn. One way or another, things would change after this day. And everyone knew this, even though no one said a single thing.

"Vic, turn that garbage down," he says, burying his face in his hands. He can't hear himself think; though the sirens are still there.

"Garbage?" She says from the driver's seat, looking at him through the rearview mirror. "Noah, this is Guns N' Roses. This is incredible."

"Don't act like you're the first person to discover rock and roll," Miles scoffs. "It just makes you sound stupid."

Vickie grins, tapping the wheel in time to the music. "Miles, darling, I can act however the hell I want."

"Just shut up and turn it down," Noah repeats, gritting his teeth.

He doesn't see Vickie and Miles exchange incredulous looks in the front seats. They're worried about him; their leader is acting strange. He's acting the way he does before he does something rash. The putting his head in his hands, the snapping, the repetitive whispering to himself. A boiling point usually tends to follow, and the outcome is always fiery, always destructive. Always perfectly angry, just the way it should be.

There's not enough time to think before the van pulls up to where she is. It's her parents house; there is a schedule to her parents days, and it's 2:30 pm, which means they are not home, and won't be for a couple of hours. The house is brick, with a cobblestone walkway leading up towards the back door and a lovely and well cared for garden in the backyard; it must be her mother's. She had never liked gardening all that much.

Amanda straightens her collar. She is swift, quick on her feet, and as sharp as they come, the team's greatest secret, and their greatest weapon. It's her job to find the key in the backyard and unlock the back door. She is out of the van before Noah can decide that he wants to change his mind about this, and back inside before he can realize what it is they're really doing. His words get caught in his throat when Miles steps out onto the sidewalk.

She is the reason for his pain. He can't forget that. If she goes, then so do the sirens, and maybe then he can sleep soundly for once. His eyes are focused on Amanda's thin fingers. Pinky, ring, middle, index, thumb. What's that song that has that same rhythm?

She's got a smile that it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories

Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky

Now and then when I see her face, she takes me away to that special place

And if I stare too long, I'd probably break down and cry

He finds solace in the familiar words and the tapping of Amanda's fingers (pinky, ring, middle, index, thumb) while he sits and waits for something to happen. Sebastian is not moving at all. Everything is horridly still. And then it happens.

Miles is carrying someone over his shoulder. She has dark hair, pulled into a ponytail that is doing a poor job of keeping her hair in place. There are loose strands that blow in the wind as she is carried across the stone pathway. Her eyes are closed, her arms and legs are limp; she is wearing a soft purple shirt and blue jeans, and there is no ring on her finger.

Something cracks inside Noah Cutwright; but not in the I-can't-take-it-anymore kind of way. Something cracks inside Noah Cutwright and he is absolutely certain that he is doing the right thing, because there is no ring on her finger, and she is the reason for his pain. She deserves this. His face breaks into a firm smile, his eyes narrowed as he watches Miles put her in the back of the van. Vickie notices this smile; she is pleased. Their leader is himself again.

Sebastian moves ever so slightly away from where she is laying on the floor of the van. If the kid weren't so connected, they would have no place for him here at all. He is not like the rest of them. Noah cocks his head to the left, as if to say is this not comfortable for you? He looks down at her with a sneer on his face. She is beautiful and in this moment, so, so weak.

Miles gets quickly back into the passenger's seat, and Vickie starts the engine. They are out of there as quickly as they came. Amanda's face has broken into a smile as well; she and Noah lock eyes, and there is mutual understanding. This is going to be fun.

"Hey Vic," Noah says. "Turn it up."


	2. Sedona, Arizona

THE HOSPITAL BED WAS A MISERABLE PLACE TO SPEND HER NIGHT, but at least the room she was placed in had a window that overlooked the city. She'd always been quite fond of the lights at night, as cliché as it may seem. She'd never been quite fond of participating in clichés (even hating clichés was, in itself, a classic cliché), but in the state she was in, she felt that she deserved an exception, just this once.

When she zoned out, the lights would melt together into a glowing kaleidoscope, a reminder that even though she was in the middle of hell, the rest of the world was not.

The worst part of all of it was that she had been so certain that her hell had ended when she left him; but she'd never really left him at all, had she?

Running away, he'd called it.

Her hands tensed in her lap when the two agents she'd seen earlier walked into the room. Their faces were etched with worry, pity, and even though she knew they weren't doing it to make her feel helpless, she couldn't help but hate it. They looked at her like she was fragile; and maybe she was, but she needed them to know she wasn't. She wasn't a victim. She was okay.

They pulled two chairs up beside her bed as she tried her best to look tired, but not afraid. The hospital dress she was wearing stripped her of any identity to cling to. The air in the room was not cold, but she felt goosebumps prickle across her arms.

"Sedona Luong," one of the agents said gently. "I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner, this is SSA Derek Morgan. We understand how exhausted you must feel right now."

She gave Hotchner a slight smile, as if to say, you've got that right. "Exhausted, yes. But at the same time I would run to the moon and back if it meant I could get out of this damn hospital bed."

Morgan chuckled. "Sedona, we know this is a lot to ask of you, but in order to understand what happened to you, we need you to relive your kidnapping. Do you think you can do that?"

"I can do it," she said firmly.

The two agents exchanged eye contact, seemingly impressed by how willing she was to recall her memories. She didn't think there was much to be impressed about. They were just... memories.

"Okay," Morgan said, folding his hands in his lap. "I'm going to ask you to close your eyes now, Sedona. Think back to when you were taken. What do you see?"

* * *

The walls of her childhood bedroom were painted a pale pink, but the paint was barely visible underneath all of the posters and other mementos she'd hung up over time. There was a large bookcase against one wall and next to it, a bed, the covers neatly made. A record player sat on the floor next to where she lay, jazz music curling into the air like sweet, lyrical smoke.

* * *

"I don't," Sedona muttered. "I'm in my bedroom, but my eyes are closed."

"That's okay," said Morgan. "When one of our senses are taken away, our others become heightened as a result. What do you hear?"

"I hear jazz music. It was, um, my mother's old record and she had recommended it to me that morning for me to listen to, and... and there's a car. I can hear a car pulling up. But my bedroom windows face the backyard. They didn't pull up in front." Neither Morgan nor Hotchner said anything, so she took a breath and continued. "I don't think anything of it, at first, the car. The music ends so I open my eyes to flip the record over and then close them again. If there are footsteps, I don't hear any."

* * *

Her eyes flickered open just as the handle of her door turned. There was a split second where everything was still; even the record seemed to stop spinning. And then all in one motion, her arms were pinned down to the ground, and something was being injected into her arm. She didn't even have time to scream.

"Someone comes into my room. I have this moment that always happens in movies, like when you're so paralyzed in shock that you don't even register what's happening, and then... some kind of drug is injected into my arm. He smells like alcohol and cologne, and... I don't even get a say when my eyes close this time. Everything just fades. Not even to black. Just fades."

"You're doing really well, Sedona. This is unbelievably helpful to us," Hotchner said as she swallowed down the taste of fear that was rising in the back of her throat. "Do you think you could tell us what you remember of when you woke up?"

"Yes."

* * *

The first thing she noticed was sunlight, golden and glaringly bright, filtering in through a window. There were new rips in the knees of her jeans, stained with dirt and something deep crimson. Her ankles and wrists were tied with rope to a chair, shooting fire through her skin.

"Sedona, Arizona, I remember when we'd go there. Your eyes were full of light and there were moonbeams in your hair."

There was something so familiar about that voice, like maybe she'd heard it before in a dream; or, rather, a nightmare. Even now it was fuzzy, far away, even though it seemed to be coming from right next to her. Hot breath chilled the back of her neck, making every aching bone in her body tense up with the feeling that everything was wrong.

"Sedona, Arizona, the air was sweet like cinnamon. We danced across the mountaintops, I knew just what I was getting in."

Someone was singing a song that she had heard before. She could hear every lyric clearly in her head, which was pounding like thunder. What was it from?

"Sedona, Arizona, we left the next day before the afternoon. Waved goodbye to the skyline and prayed that we'd be back soon."

Someone was stroking her hair. The voice was right next to her ear, raspy and quiet, but certain of itself. And she was certain that everything about this was so familiar.

"Sedona, Arizona, we drove home across the highway. Sang songs of love and loss and other things, sang our sorrows away."

Someone she knew had sung that to her before.

The words were gentle but the memories were not. They were only flashes of memories; alcohol, ripped clothes, couches with cigarette burns, screaming matches; but there was no way that any of it could have been her. She was watching it from too far away for it to be her. She was watching all of that happen to someone else...

* * *

Sedona felt her heartbeat race, and silently prayed that the agents couldn't hear it. She was okay. She was okay. Her fingers tapped against the stiff blankets; pinky finger, ring finger, middle finger, index finger, thumb.

"The drugs made my head hurt. I remember specifically there being sun, because it hurt my eyes like hell. It took me hours to get used to it." She squeezed her fingers into a fist. "And there was someone singing this song that I recognized from somewhere. I couldn't figure out where I knew it from at first, and then I realized. It was our song."

"Our?" asked Morgan.

"My ex-fiance and I's. His name is Noah Cutwright. We were together for three years, and he would sing that song to me sometimes, but he..." Sedona's voice dropped to a murmur. "He would hurt me. And for a long time I thought that was just how love was supposed to be, but it was- it wasn't. Fourteen months ago he proposed to me, and a year ago I just... left."

"The anniversary of a broken off engagement," muttered Hotchner. "That's our Unsub's stressor."

"Sedona," Morgan said. "I need you to tell me what happened after you heard Noah singing to you."

* * *

"I missed you," the voice said; but it was no longer coming from far away.

"Noah?" Her voice came out in a strangled, unrecognizable whisper. The ceiling was spinning, covered in colorless stars, not allowing her to think straight; but she knew where the voice was from.

"I missed you so much," he repeated. "You look beautiful."

"What's... what... what did you do to me?"

"It's not what I did to you, but what they did to you. I didn't do any of it, Sedona, you have to remember that when you start to hate me. And trust me, baby," he said. "You will."

"Noah, I can't..."

He began to stroke her hair again, swift, precise movements that filled her up with memories that she'd tried so hard to forget.

"Can't what, love?"

She inhaled and closed her eyes, wishing the ache would just go away. "I can't hate you more than I already do."

His hand stilled in her hair and lingered for a moment before pulling away, taking some strands with him in his anger. "You always found such pleasure in hurting me. I swear to you, you won't be able to do that anymore."

She felt the closeness of him leave her side, and for that she was grateful. Once she heard the telltale click of a lock in a door, the tears started, and didn't stop until she was tired enough to fall back asleep.

* * *

"He told me he missed me and I told him I hated him. I could've played along but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that there was any part of me at all that loved him. He got angry and left me in that room."

"You said there was a window in the room he kept you in? Could you see anything out of it?" Hotchner asked.

"No, it was some kind of textured glass," said Sedona. "But I couldn't hear any honks or sirens or anything. We weren't near any roads, but there were no large patches of trees to obstruct the sun. I knew that if I screamed for help... no one would be able to hear me." Her throat began to constrict again; pinky finger, ring finger, middle finger, index finger, thumb. Pinky, ring, middle, index, thumb.

"Sedona, do you need a break?" asked Morgan.

"No, I'm fine," she said, shaking her head. "I can keep going."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." She set her fidgeting hand in her lap and covered it with her other one. "I'm sure."

* * *

The blood of them had been long dry, but there had been something remarkable there once, some time ago, when everything was new and beautiful, the way young love always seems to be at first. But now she was desperately wishing she had never met him, and he was still completely in love, plotting her demise.

She didn't even bother trying to come up with an escape plan. Tired, afraid, and in pain; perhaps this had always been her destiny.

Instead, she closed her eyes and thought of far away things: hazy air and the glittering lights of the small town she had lived in when she was a kid. The coffee shop that she went to every day after school in grade 10 to prove something to her mother. She was grown-up enough to drink the kinds of things that adults drank, see? Cigarette smoke in her bedroom with the window open and the lights turned off, the thrill of doing something forbidden a high of its own.

She could smell the sweet bitterness of the smoke now, like she was back in her old bedroom; only, when she opened her eyes, that bedroom couldn't have been farther away.

"You're not even that pretty." It was a female voice this time, with hints of coarse mockery laced through every word. "He was always so kind to you, and what did you give him in return? You're pathetic."

"I'm sorry?" Sedona scoffed. Her voice was still unsteady, a result of not having used it for a decent amount of time. "I've been in this room for at least two days straight. The least you could do is tell me what's going on."

The woman stepped into Sedona's vision; the first thing she noticed was her hair, fiery red and perfectly curled, like she'd spent hours doing it that very morning. Her lips were full and pursed as she took in every inch of Sedona's face. The dress she wore was pale orange with white polka dots, which seemed like her own form of horrific, sarcastic comedy.

"I heard you were the one to break it off," the woman said.

"What else could I have done?" said Sedona. "He was hurting me."

"Liar." She was holding something in her hands that gleamed every time in hit the light, twirling it casually through her fingers. "Noah said that you love to tell lies."

"You do everything he says, don't you?"

The woman pointed the gleaming thing in her direction. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Lie."

Sedona inhaled, closing her eyes, begging her mind to give her anything she could use against this woman with the fiery hair and the gleaming thing between her fingers. The way she spoke about him, like she was a friend of his. A partner. The dress, the dress struck something in her mind, like she'd seen, or rather, heard of it someone speak of it before. The exact same pale orange with white polka dots... Her eyes snapped open.

"Vickie Andrews," Sedona muttered. The woman's head shot up, her lips pursing even further. "He spoke about you, all the time, even when we were togeth-together."

Vickie's wide eyes lit up. "He spoke about me?"

Of course. She was in love with him.

"Constantly. I think what really ended us," Sedona said carefully, "was you."

Vickie gently twirled the tip of the gleaming thing on her index finger, considering what Sedona had said. "What did he say?"

"He said, he said that night he met you at the bar was the first good night he'd had in years. The way he spoke about you... he- it hurt me," she continued. "He loved me but he never spoke about me the way he did about you. Like I was someone incredible. I... I got angry with him and I left and I know that's my fault but I couldn't stay when I knew he was in love with someone else."

Vickie's face was turned away from Sedona, but she could feel the smugness radiating off of her like sunbeams.

"I know he helped you through your addiction."

"Shut up," Vickie hissed. "You know nothing about me."

"You're right," Sedona agreed. "I don't. I just know he loved you in a way he could never love me."

Vickie stilled where she stood, her arms tensed at her sides. "You," she said, "are a liar."

In a split second, she brought the gleaming thing down against Sedona's arm, causing a sharp pain to ricochet through her body.

* * *

"A woman came in next. Her name was Vickie Andrews, a friend of Noah's that he met when he was bartending. They were really close," said Sedona. "She had a knife in her hands, so I tried to say things that would make her happy but it didn't work." With her eyes still closed, she extended out her arm so the agents could see the deep cut that ran from her shoulder to her elbow.

"Jesus," she heard Morgan mutter.

"Sedona," Hotchner said. "What bar did Noah work at?"

"Uh, a place by Georgetown University called Nola's. He worked there for a couple of years but he was fired a few of weeks before he proposed to me."

"We have a lead," said Hotchner, writing down the name of the bar on a pad of paper.

Slowly, Sedona opened her eyes. "Lead?" she said quietly. "Did you not...? Is there something you're not telling me?"

The room was quiet for a moment, the only sound the steady beeping of her heart rate monitor and the echoes of people in the hallway outside. Morgan and Hotchner exchanged another look, and again, her hand began to tap. It was Hotchner who answered her question.

"You were kidnapped by a team of five known as the Quinque Desperato, a gang that has been our primary suspect in a series of murders targeting high risk victims such as prostitutes and drug addicts since May of last year. We managed to arrest Vickie Andrews, Amanda Thacker, and Sebastian Mendez, but Noah Cutwright and an unidentified fifth member escaped and are now on the run."

Sedona felt a tear slip out of her eye, burning her cheek. "Am I in danger?"

Hotchner exhaled quietly. "Yes."


	3. Morse Code

"I WANT TO DO THE REST OF THE WALK-THROUGH," Sedona whispered hoarsely.

"Hold on," said Morgan. "It's okay if you want to take a break. This stuff is hard, Sedona. You don't need to feel like you have to prove anything to anyone."

She shook her head, her dark hair falling in front of her eyes. "No. I want to keep going. I'm in danger, right? Well then you're going to need all the information you can get."

"Kid-"

"I can do it. Please, just let me do it."

* * *

There was something warm about the coldness that enveloped her, something comforting in the knowing that she had hit solid ground and could fall no further. Out of the window she could see that the sky had lost its golden hue, and had sunk into an inky black that reminded her of the color she had helped her little brother paint his bedroom; their humming the midnight wind and their paint speckled clothing the stars. He'd called it his outer space hideaway, his favorite place on earth. His wide-eyed grin after he saw it finished for the first time was what she thought of as she sat there in the silence.

It must've been three, four hours of nothing before the sound of voices outside the door made her jump.

"You had no right," said Noah's low voice, muffled by the door.

"I'm sorry, Noah, you know I am," another voice said, sultry and smooth; Vickie. "But I had to, I had to. Oh, you should've seen the look on her face when I brought the knife against her skin! It was incredible."

Sedona swore she could hear him shaking his head through the door. "Don't you dare talk about her like that. I made it very clear that it would be me who would handle her, and only me."

"Calm down, Wright," said a third voice, a man's voice, one she didn't recognize. "She was just having fun. Can you blame her?"

"Yes," said Noah. "I can when this is her we're talking about."

"I said I was sorry," Vickie pouted. "But hey, at least we got another one out of it!"

"Yeah? Well, it wasn't supposed to be like this. At least not yet. She isn't just one of our games, Vic. She deserves so much more."

"All you ever do is talk about that girl! What's so great about her, anyway?" she protested.

"Just shut up, you two," said the third voice. "We need to stay focused."

Vickie let out a honeyed sigh. "Whatever, Lover Boy, I'm tired of fighting. Just be thankful that we got such a good one, and-" Something stopped her, and Sedona heard her gasp in delight. "Look at the badge, Noah!"

"Holy shit," muttered the third voice.

"FBI," said Noah. "Vic, if this is one of your stupid pranks-"

"No, no, that's one hundred percent real."

"FBI," he repeated, his angry tone turning into one of pride. "Would you look at that, I caught a federal agent."

"See, what did I tell you? This is shaping up to be one of my favorite days since Bryer. I think you owe me a thank you," said Vickie.

Noah begrudgingly let out a thank you, and the lock on the door clicked open.

* * *

"What do you hear?" asked Hotchner.

"I hear Noah and Vickie speaking outside the door. Noah's angry, and there's a third voice that I don't recognize. I think he's the person who took me. It's nighttime then, maybe a couple of hours after Vickie- um, but they're arguing about something, and I hear them talking about the agent."

"Okay, good," said Morgan. "What does it smell like?"

"What does it smell like? Dust. It smells like dust. Wherever I am hasn't been used for a while. And- oh, Vickie says something like... 'this has been my favorite day since Bryer'. The way she says it, it's like it's a place, or, or a person."

"Bryer," Morgan muttered. "Carrie Bryer. She was the first victim suspected to be murdered by the Quinque Desperato. It's their first kill, of course it gives them a high that's practically impossible to be replicated by any kill moving forward. What happens next?"

* * *

The sliver of light that emanated from the open door made the pool of dark blood that had dripped from her arm visible to Sedona; there was something sinister about the way that it glistened, almost beautifully.

In the next-to-darkness she made out two bodies carrying a third one, propped up between them with an arm over each shoulder, and a fourth one trailing behind, a crimson knife in one hand, and a wooden chair in the other. The chair made a scraping sound as it was dragged across the floor, and the body that had been propped up was set down in the chair, his head sagging to one side, unconscious. Sedona watched as they tied his wrists and ankles as they had done hers, a difficult knot that she couldn't undo, even if she'd wanted to.

She kept her head down as Noah, Vickie, and the other man walked out, leaving her alone with the stranger. The moon had risen past the clouds, allowing for pale light to be brought into the room.

Quite some stranger he was; his hair was chestnut brown and hung wavy and still across his forehead, his chest rising and falling but his eyes closed. He wore a brown sweater vest over a purple button up, with a striking red tie underneath. His socks were mismatched, one orange with black stripes, and the other as purple as his shirt. The gun holster on his belt was empty, and she realized with a start that there was a stream of blood that ran from the side of his face.

He stirred, his eyes flickering open and immediately settling on the blood that covered her arm. "Are you hurt?" he whispered.

"I- no, um, I'm okay," she said. "Are you? Hurt?"

"Not majorly. Are you Sedona Luong?"

Sedona's breath caught in her throat. "Yes."

"Your parents filed a missing persons report for you twenty one hours ago," he explained. "Sedona, listen, my name is Dr. Spencer Reid and I work for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. My team-"

He was cut off by the door banging open again, and the two of them leaned back against their chairs as five sets of shoes echoed across the concrete floor. This was surely it. This would surely be the end, and it was brave of Dr. Spencer Reid to try and save her but they were both going to die.

* * *

"They bring Dr. Reid in, and then they leave, but only for a few minutes. He's unconscious at first, and there's blood running down the side of his face. They must have knocked him out. I notice what he's wearing first. He reminds me of a..."

"A college professor?" Morgan finished. "Yep, that's Reid."

"Yeah, a college professor. He wakes up and we're only able to talk for a few minutes before they come in, all five of them, and...." She swallowed, turning back towards the lights.

"Hey, take your time, okay? Just think for me. What happened after they came in?"

* * *

A man no older than twenty approached her and began to untie the ropes, with what she could've sworn was an apologetic look across his face. He pulled her up, and her knees almost gave way beneath her, a result of not having used them for days.

She couldn't cry in front of Noah. Nothing would please him more than to know that she was in pain.

"Hey, baby, how're you feeling?" he said in a casual, amused voice.

"Great, Noah, thanks so much," she snapped. "Would you please just tell me if I'm going to die?"

"Oh, no. Not yet at least. No, not without a bit of fun first, you know what I mean?" It was then that she noticed the gun in his hands. In fact, everyone besides her and Reid were holding guns. "Ah, yeah. That's the great thing about Seb. He's got access to things you can't even imagine." He flicked the gun in Reid's direction. "Found him lurking outside. I think he was looking for you, can you believe it?"

"What do you want?" she hissed, balling her fingers into fists so she wouldn't be tempted to drum them against the side of her leg.

"I want you," he said, "to shoot him."

Sedona stilled. "What?"

"I want you to shoot him," Noah said, and then leaned closer so he could whisper into her ear. "Shoot him, or your family dies. Wouldn't it be a shame to see Evan dead? Now I know you don't want that."

"No. Don't you hurt him."

"Well, that can be arranged. If you shoot him."

Noah held out the gun to her, smiling lopsidedly, a smile she knew all too well. He'd smiled the same way when he proposed to her. Shakily, she took it from his hands, the cold metal feeling entirely out of place in her grip.

"Ah, see. It feels nice, doesn't it? To hold something of such power in your hands. It's almost... intoxicating," Noah said euphorically. "Now, shoot him."

"I can't."

Noah's grin remained. "Shoot him."

"No."

"No?" his eyes narrowed. "Stonybrook elementary school. Your ten year old brother Evan Theodore Luong rides the bus there every morning at 8:15 am. School is out at 4:00 pm and he walks home when the weather is nice, getting home at around 4:20. He has soccer practice every Monday and Thursday at Moore Park from 5 to 6:30. Now shoot. Him."

Sedona swallowed the lump in her throat and focused on the gun, willing tears not to fall. Giving any power to Noah would make him enjoy this more. She exhaled and pointed the gun at Spencer's head.

The nightmare would be over soon, one way or another. The sun would rise and then it would fall, and she would be gone, and none of this would matter anymore. Her family would be safe, and that was what she kept repeating to herself as she rested her finger against the trigger.

Everything was going to be okay.

Would Reid just stop blinking like that? It was distracting her. She needed to be focused. She needed everything to be okay. Stop, she mouthed at him. Please, just stop. The faster it was done, the better it was for both of them.

But, no; something was wrong. He wasn't blinking the way you do when you have something caught in your eye. It was intentional, methodical, it was, it was...

It was morse code.

He was sending her a message.

Blink, blink, blink. A long blink, and then another short one, and a long one again. Short blink, long blink, two short blinks, and then short blink, long blink, two short blinks again...

S T A L L

He was telling her to stall. That was it. The reason why Noah hadn't killed her yet; it was all about seeing her suffer, all of it. And even if she didn't want to admit it, he knew her well. He knew killing an innocent person would be a torture worse than death; he knew her conscience would kill her before he did, a death bloodier than anything that he could ever offer.

Sedona could work with that. She blinked as quickly as she could, holding her gun shakily in her hands like she was still considering it so Noah wouldn't catch on.

A R E T H E Y C O M I N G

Reid blinked back,

Y E S

Sedona's heart raced as she realized: there was a shot. A possibility that she could see her little brother again and tell her parents that she was sorry. A possibility that she could make everything better. Now it was just a matter of making Noah believe that she was going to do it.

"Why are you doing this?" she said, releasing her finger ever so slightly from the trigger. "This doesn't have to end this way. Please."

"I'm doing this because you deserve this. After everything I gave you, everything I did for you, you left me? We were going to be happy, baby. But you ruined everything," said Noah.

Sedona resisted the urge to let out all of her pent up anger on him. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't matter anymore."

"Please, Noah," she whispered. "Please don't make me do this."

"It's too late," Noah said. "It's him or them. Choose one."

Time was running out.

Reid seemed to understand what she was thinking before she even blinked.

S O O N

he said.

"Please," she repeated, edging more desperation into her voice. "I'll do anything you want me to. Just please don't make me do this."

"No, but don't you see? This is what I want." Sedona could hear the impatience in his voice and the shoes that were shifting in the darkness; they didn't have much longer. He hadn't expected this to go on as long as it did, and the suspicion was starting to set in.

She shifted her attention to Reid. "I'm sorry. He said he was going to kill my family."

"It's okay," Reid responded. "I understand."

"Noah," said an unfamiliar female voice; the fifth set of shoes, Sedona presumed. "Something's not right."

There was a split second where no one moved an inch. The ink seemed to melt from the sky and surround her in that room, blocking her view of Noah and of Reid and of the gun that rested in her hands. Perhaps she was in outer space. But, no; there were frantic voices, none of which she had heard before.

The starry veil vanished and there were people in vests with white letters that read FBI, shining flashlights around the room, and the gun fell from her hands, landing with a thud on the concrete floor. Someone touched her arm and she almost crumpled in fear, before realizing that the person wore one of the vests. Her face was kind and her blonde hair hung delicately around her face, and her smile filled Sedona's chest with warmth.

Everything was okay.

The woman held gently onto the arm that wasn't cut, and Sedona's feet seemed to carry her down the stairs and outside, where there was real sky and real stars. Someone draped a blanket around her shoulders. Someone wrapped bandages around her arm. At some point she sat in the back of an ambulance, watching people bustle around her.

She was watching it from too far away for it to be happening to her.

But it was. It was happening to her.

* * *

Sedona couldn't hold it in any longer; the tears fell like pearly rain down her face, and she felt so ashamed. She wasn't supposed to cry. But it finally hit her that this wasn't a movie that she was watching in the cinema; the cut on her arm was real. The scars would be real. The healing would be long and difficult, and it would all be real.

"I'm sorry," she muttered through tears. "God, it's all my fault. I'm so sorry."


	4. Where is My Mind?

Her face was sticky with dried tears, the whites of her eyes clouded with spidery red watercolor that bled into her irises. Sedona hated crying. She had never been very good at controlling it; it had always been that the more she tried to make it stop, the hotter they burned and the faster they fell. Relentlessly, her right hand tapped the familiar pattern, waiting out the rainstorm.

"Sorry," she mumbled, tucking a piece of tangled hair out of her face. "We can continue now, I'm sorry."

Morgan shook his head firmly. "No, you need to get some rest, Sedona. What you gave us is more than enough. You did a great job."

"I can't go to bed. Please." Her voice caught on the last word, and she scowled at how little it helped her argument. "I need this—you need this, please, just let me—"

"It's normal to feel angry and want to do as much as you can in the moment," said Hotchner. No, he didn't understand, this wasn't about anger. It was about catching Noah Cutwright. It was about making sure they caught him so no one else had to go through what she'd gone through. "But what will help us most is for you to go to sleep. A clear head is important."

"My head is clear, I... I just, I'm fine," she said matter-of-factly. She knew that there was no way they would allow her to continue the walkthrough, and, to be honest, she didn't really want to. She just didn't want to be alone.

"Go to sleep, Sedona," Morgan said.

The two agents rose from their chairs and left the room, turning off the light switch so that the only light that she had came from the vast city below.

She made no effort to fall asleep. The heart rate monitor beeped unwaveringly like white noise in the background, but it had the opposite effect. The city lights turned her skin a ghostly shade of orange, and every few seconds, red, as the cell tower just across the way glowed in a steady pulse. It smelled bitter, like antiseptic.

Evan had a math test tomorrow. She hoped that he'd studied for it. He had a tendency to push things like that to the last moment, just like she did. Had her mother remembered to water the plants in Sedonas bedroom? Her ivy looked like it needed some water, last time she checked. Adrien at the plant store downtown always laughed when she came in looking for a new ivy; she had a bad habit of killing them. Often.

She turned her head away from the window. In the doorway, a tall figure stood, circles under his eyes as deep as hers, brown hair swept backwards, a satchel draped over one shoulder. He was wearing mismatched socks.

"Can I help you?"

Reid stood, silently, for a few moments. He hadn't been thinking about what he would say when he'd decided to go see her. "I know what it's like to not want to fall asleep. Because you're afraid that when you do, all you'll see is what you've been trying to avoid."

Sedona swallowed, moving her head away from him. "I'm sure you do. It becomes routine in a job like yours, doesn't it?" She stilled. Why was everything coming out like that? "Sorry."

"That's okay." He paused. "How are you? That's a--that's a stupid question. I'm sorry."

"Tired. Really, really tired. And hungry."

Reid reached into the satchel. "I have almonds. They're high in an amino acid called tryptophan which assists in the making of serotonin and melatonin."

"Thanks," she said as he tossed them to her.

"You know, scientists have proven that nightmares can actually be a good thing, in some cases. Concrete memories are much easier to process and file away than abstract anxieties." She said nothing, so he continued. "Sleep is always hard, at first, but I promise you it gets a lot easier as time goes on. You'll look back and wonder how y—"

"How did you know I knew Morse code?" she blurted out.

Reid paused. "I thought everyone knew Morse code."

There was a moment of nothing before Sedona laughed, turning her head towards the ceiling. She heard Reid emit a quiet chuckle.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes—is that not right?"

Sedona shook her head. "It's not," she said quietly, lacing and unlacing her fingers together. "You know, I pretty much saved your life, didn't I."

"I think—I think you're remembering things wrong. Who was it that came as a distraction while the rest of my team listened in so they could figure out when to intercept?"

"Did I hit my head? Cause I'm pretty sure you were kind of helpless when they brought you in."

"It must be all that medication in the IV you're hooked up to."

"Or maybe I'm just right."

"You know there's actually a medical condition called short-term memory loss that is typically brought on by old age but can be caused by multiple different health issues. Maybe it could have something to do with that."

"There he is," Sedona said. "I thought I'd lost you. Bring the other one back, I like him better."

She was smiling. Her eyes were getting droopy, and her head still had an ache to it, but she was smiling.

"Hey, Dr. Reid?"

"Yeah?"

"D'you think—d'you think you could stay here until I fall asleep?"

Reid said nothing, but Sedona saw him nod his head. He made his way through the half-darkness to one of the chairs beside her bed.

She fell asleep almost instantly.

* * *

It was a stuffy little bar; Nola's, one that she had walked by a thousand times but never gone inside. The whole place was packed shoulder to shoulder with people nodding their heads along to the live music, a cover band playing versions of classic rock songs. The lead singer was dressed like Joan Jett, wearing a black leather jacket over a bright red tank top that was visible even over the clouds of smoke, her dark hair styled into a short cut with pointy black bangs.

It had been Carys' idea for Sedona to go out on a blind date. Six weeks had passed since Sedona's split with Danny, and it was time for her to get back out there. After all, she was in her freshman year of college, and this was exactly the time to be looking for someone.

She'd even put on a nice outfit; a black dress, loose enough to dance in but tight enough to keep her date interested- at least, that's what Carys had said. Not that it mattered. Her date was a dick. A friend of a friend of a friend. And a dick.

"Hey, y'wanna get me something?" he asked her as they sat at a table, slurring his words from an extensive amount of drink. "F'real though, get me something."

"Um. No thanks."

"Whatever," he grumbled, standing up to grab another drink by himself. "Bitch."

Sedona sighed and hugged her arms tighter around herself. She could get up to dance, but dancing by herself felt like an awkward and stupid thing to do, especially considering everyone who was dancing was dancing with someone else. She could always get a taxi....

A man who looked to be about her age approached her. He was handsome, the kind of charming that you swore only existed in movies.

"Can I buy you a drink?" The man said in a smooth voice, a hint of a Boston accent behind each word. By the way he held himself, she could tell he had obviously done this many times before.

"Nope," Sedona said, flicking her eyes up to his. "I'm here with someone."

"Yeah? And how's that working out for you?"

Sedona smiled, despite herself. "Touche. But it's still a no. I'm not drinking tonight."

"Ah. You wanna dance, then?"

"I'll have to pass on that too."

"What, you don't like Joan Jett?" He crossed his arms in front of him, lifting up one eyebrow in a smirk.

"Oh, no, I like her," Sedona countered.

The man laughed as the music changed into a song she recognized. "Touche," he responded.

Her foot began to tap against the floor along to the beat the drummer was playing, and the man noticed it with a grin.

"You sure you don't want to dance?"

She shook her head, but the words were about to start and she really couldn't resist. "Okay! Okay, fine. One dance, but that's it."

"Mm-hmm," the man said, holding out a hand for her to take. She grabbed it, and they reached the hazy dance floor just as the woman dressed as Joan Jett began to sing.

With your feet on the air, and your head on the ground

Try this trick and spin it, yeah

He was truly a good dancer; he didn't trip over his feet or hers, and he spun her around with little effort. Her promise of one song turned into two, and her cheeks reddened as two songs turned into three.

At some point she ended up with his corduroy jacket over her shoulders, and they swayed together to a rendition of Love of My Life by Queen. It was all so very cliche; she wanted so badly to hate it, but the intoxicating suddenness of the night made it impossible.

"You know, I have a question. Why'd you come over to me, of all people?" she asked, out of breath, a 19-year-old's naivety. "And why'd you keep asking?"

"Because," he replied. "You were the only person to tell me no."

"Oh, okay, so that's what this is? You like me because I told you no," she said with a short, dizzy laugh.

"What can I say, I had to have you." He shrugged, suddenly spinning her around. "I'm Noah, by the way."

"Sedona."


End file.
